Zukerman ChamberPlayers
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The New York Times, 18.11.2009 | Allan Kozinn
The Zukerman Chamber Players performing Brahms's String Sextet No. 1 at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday afternoon. (…) In the Brahms sextet Mr. Zukerman played one of the two viola lines; Jethro Marks played the other, with Jessica Linnebach and Yosuke Kawasaki, violinists, and Amanda
Forsyth and Winona Zelenka, cellists. It would be tough to say whether Brahms’s First or Second Sextet is the greater work, but one thing the First has going for it is its exquisite slow movement, a set of variations on an irresistibly bittersweet theme. These players seemed keenly aware of the
movement’s charm, and that of the Haydnesque Scherzo.

The New Zealand Herald, 17.08.2009 | William Dart
NZSO and the Zukerman Chamber Players at Auckland Town Hall Thursday evening's concert of euphoric Elgar created great expectations for the remaining three instalments of "The Zukerman Experience", and well-founded hopes were not dashed. (...) Mendelssohn and Brahms Quintets are not frequently come upon in the concert hall. Any slightness of content in Mendelssohn's Opus 87 was disguised by the faith and gusto with which the five players investigated its busy pages. Walls of Vivaldian tremolo were much in evidence. The catalyst in the success of Brahms' Opus 111 Quintet was the rich-toned violas of Jethro Marks and Ashan Pillai.

Middle C, 12.August 2009 | Peter Mechen
First of all, there was a sense, right from the first note, that both Zukerman and his ‘cellist partner, Amanda Forsythe, were living the music – the interplay between them was palpable, the authoritative, “digging-in” opening giving way to a wonderful sense of the players exploring the sound-spaces and stimulating each other’s sensibilities, both using pizzicato motifs to goad the other into responses both of the utmost delicacy and beguiling richness. Then there was the sheer variation of tone-colour, gossamer figurations set by turns alongside fullblooded outpourings, the sounds at times resembling that of a string orchestra, the cellist with simple arpeggiations ravishing our senses with the glorious tones of her instrument. (...)
Detail was beautifully filled in, from the elfin ambience of the tremolando accompaniment at the opening, to the deftest of violinistic touches from Zukerman himself in the more withdrawn Andante episodes; while the Players obviously revelled in the music’s pacy minor-key sections, delivering the notes with plenty of snap and polish, and nicely contrasting the polarities of activity and circumspection throughout. (...)
The Dvorak Quintet is justly regarded as one of the great glories of the chamber-music repertoire for string instruments – and in a sense, Zukerman and his Players performed it like that, with beautifully-modulated tones and tight rhythmic control throughout, allowing the work’s greatness as an absolute piece of music to shine through,(...)

Chicago, 6. Juli 2009 | Lawrence A. Johnson
Bronfman, violinist Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth and violist Jethro Marks made a wonderfully simpatico team, investing the music with a light-footed buoyancy and giving the opening Allegro’s sturm und drang bracing intensity without inflating the scale of the music. (...)
The players were uncommonly well matched yet enough individuality showed forth to consistently beguile the ear, with Bronfman’s brilliant keyboard work complementing Zukerman’s gleaming violin, Forsyth’s warmly rounded cello and Marks’ lean, burnished viola.

Harrogate Advertiser, 8. August 2008
The five players immediately captured the ‘Vivace’ of the first movement and lifted the evening with some stunningly precise yet energetic playing, giving way in the second movement to a light and stately melody which somehow transported us back to a 19th century salon.

Yorkshire Post, 8. August 2008 | David Denton
There is that ultimate feeling of satisfaction that passes through the performances from the Zukerman Chamber Players, their self-effacing musicianship never standing between the listener and composer.